Soda machine protest frazzles tempers in the Castro

NEWS

Published 01/03/2013

by Peter Hernandez

Nancy Stoller, left, and Jonathan Richman engage a
pedestrian, who would not give his name, in front of Cliff's Variety December
28, asking him not to buy Sodastream products for sale at Cliff's because the
product is made in Israeli-occupied Palestine. Twenty-five activists picketed
the Cliff's, following months of discussion with the store and a Christmas Eve
action that resulted in employees forcibly removing the activists from the
store. (Photo: Rick Gerharter)

A small but spirited group of demonstrators held
informational pickets outside Cliff's Variety on Castro Street last week after some
of them were forcibly removed by employees for loudly protesting inside the
store on Christmas Eve.

The cause of the dispute is an at-home soda machine,
Sodastream, which is manufactured in an illegal Israeli settlement in the West
Bank that is disputed by the Palestinians.

Some of the protesters filed assault complaints with San
Francisco police after the incident. They and others distributed literature to
passersby in front of Cliff's December 26 and 28 about the Christmas Eve flash
mob while the store's manager said that a protester also hit one of their staff
and pushed a stroller-pushing customer.

Store manager Terry Asten Bennett said her staff wasn't
"emotionally or mentally prepared" for the two-minute adaptation of
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" December 24.

"Cliff's, with your store so bright, won't you care
about human rights?" sang the group of about a dozen protestors who donned
shirts reading, "Boycott Israel till Palestine is free" on Christmas
Eve.

Asten Bennett discussed the incident, adding that her store's
surveillance tape shows a different account than what the protesters uploaded
to YouTube, though she wouldn't share it.

"Nobody intended to push them out of the store until
one of the protesters swung at an employee. It is not our policy to touch
people," said Asten Bennett.

The video shows an agitated staff grabbing the protesters
– mostly older lesbians – and then propelling them out of the store
by grabbing their arms.

"I should have laid down so they couldn't push me, but
I was afraid to. I allowed them to propel me out. They held me by the arm and
pushed me. I went into shock afterwards," said Emily Wheeler, 58, one of
the Christmas Eve protesters.

Cliff's staff, which was not trained to properly handle
unwanted guests, had never before experienced a flash mob, said Asten Bennett.

Similar videos recently shot in Bed Bath and Beyond stores
during Sodastream protests by CodePink, a women-led activist organization, show
store managers, often overpowered by the protesters, asking the group to leave
before police arrive.

Police didn't arrive at Cliff's Variety for 25 minutes
though, and its staff is not apologetic for their actions.

Openly lesbian protester Nancy Stoller, 70, said she filed a
complaint and will receive a case report within a week. She has osteoporosis,
broke her hip two years ago, and was forcefully pulled out of the store by the
shoulder.

She will decide whether or not to press charges upon
receiving the case report, but hopes that she can at least receive an apology
mediated by Community United Against Violence.

During the December 28 vigil, some passersby sounded off to
the protesters. Petyr Kane, owner of the Castro Street businesses Body and
Citizen, said, "What they did to you was not assault. I'll show you
assault."

Another passerby, who refused to be identified, told the
protesters that they "had it coming."

"This kind of reminded me of being at a sit-in. I have
never been attacked since the 1960s. It was painful that it would happen at
Cliff's," Stoller said. She has been a pivotal LGBT activist, notably for
her successful advocacy for LGBT partner benefits at UC Santa Cruz.

The action was part of a larger nationwide protest of
products manufactured in what the United Nations has denounced as an illegal
Israeli encampment on former Palestinian land.

Since 1967, over 500 Israeli settlements have been built on
the West Bank in Palestine, a violation of international law, according to the
United Nations Security Council.

While the management of Cliff's Variety says their buyer
told them that Palestinians working for fair wages produce Sodastream,
activists say that Palestinian workers in Israeli settlements do not have the
same labor rights or benefits as Israeli workers.

Sodastream did not respond to a request for comment.

The December 24 flash mob followed eight months of negotiations
with Cliff's Variety to suspend the sale of the product, which have since
fizzled.